New Zealanders are increasingly concerned about their job security and prospects, according to a new survey from Nielsen.  Job confidence has slumped, with 71 percent of respondents characterizing local job prospects as “not so good” or “bad,” compared to just 38 percent who had that view six months ago.
Consumer confidence has also taken a hit, showing a nine-point drop to 90 since the survey was last conducted in October 2008.  Despite that drop, Kiwis’ confidence is strong compared to other Asia Pacific countries – 12 points higher – and 13 …

Nick Lake is VP, Group Client Director, The Nielsen Company
Summer’s coming. Beer season. And as grocery retailers develop strategies to help maximize their sales during the 2009 summer selling season, it’s clear there are a number of unanswered questions about the economy that could impact your business: Have job losses begun to stabilize? Which way will the stock market go today? Have we hit rock bottom yet?
If we had a crystal ball, it would be easy to determine the answers to those and other questions about our economy. But it’s …

Todd Hale, SVP, Shopper and Consumer Insight, The Nielsen Company
2008 was a stellar year for store brands in the U.S., with both dollar and unit growth outpacing branded offerings across consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories. Store brand dollar sales within food, drug and mass merchandisers grew 10.2% for the year, while branded dollar sales grew by just 2.6%. Although the gap in unit sales was not as wide, indicative of how store brand dollar growth resulted from inflationary pricing across a number of commodity-based categories, store brand units grew 2.6% …

Nielsen business leaders share their perspective on store brand performance and trends around the world.

The volume of social media buzz surrounding the swine flu or H1N1 virus appears to have peaked mid-last week before trailing off last Friday. However, online conversations surrounding the virus were higher over the weekend as compared to the previous weekend when the story first began breaking.

Interest, however, remains strong on sites like Twitter, where as of this writing, the Centers For Disease Control has added roughly 30K more followers since Friday. Additionally, the use of H1N1 to describe the virus has increased.

The economic decline has affected most parts of the world, but some have been hit harder than others.  One region that seems to be holding its own is Asia Pacific (APAC).  Although consumer confidence in APAC has declined in recent months, those declines have generally not been as steep as in Europe or North America.  Eight of the twelve markets for which Nielsen tracks ad spending posted growth in 2008 over 2007.  That said, most of the markets were registering declines by the fourth quarter.
Main media, defined by Nielsen as …

The peanut butter salmonella contamination earlier this year – which caused several fatalities – not surprisingly caused a dip in the sales of the product.  But now that the situation has subsided, sales of jarred peanut butter have returned to normal patterns.  For the four-week period ended April 18th, sales rose 2.7 percent over the previous four-week period, and were up 10.7 percent over the same period a year ago.
“The fact is that the contamination was limited to one supplier, and none of the big name brands were affected.  Consumers …

From printable online specials to cell phone downloads to 3D-projected in-store promotions. It’s a brave new digital world at retail, where human interaction now serves as a point of differentiation. Technology is changing the rules at retail.

Melissa Davies, Nielsen Online
It has been impossible to escape the news about swine flu (or H1N1 virus) this week. One of the most interesting developments this week has been watching the way people are using the Internet, and specifically social media, to connect with one another around this issue. As of yesterday, buzz volume about swine flu in the blogosphere was still on its meteoric climb, far surpassing discussion levels for the peanut butter/salmonella scare that happened earlier this year or, for a different reference point, recent pop singing sensation …

With seven weeks remaining until the transition to digital television, 3.5 million or 3.1% of U.S. TV households remain completely unready for the June 12 switch according to Nielsen.  The figure is an improvement of more than 100,000 households in the two weeks since the last update. Hispanic households showed the largest percentage improvement, moving from 5.4% unready down to 5%.

% OF HOMES COMPLETELY UNREADY FOR DIGITAL TRANSITION

DATE
Total
White
African
American
Hispanic
Asian
Under 35
Over 55

Apr 26, 2009
3.1
2.4
5.9
5.0
4.1
5.7
1.7

Apr 12, 2009
3.2
2.5
5.9
5.4
4.3
5.9
1.7

Mar 29, 2009
3.4
2.7
6.2
5.6
4.4
6.3
1.8

Mar 15, 2009
3.6
2.9
6.6
6.1
4.4
6.5
2.0

Mar 1, 2008
3.9
3.2
6.7
6.5
4.5
7.2
2.2

Feb 15, 2009
4.4
3.6
7.5
7.4
5.1
8.1
2.6

Feb …